Full Circle
by vampirepenguin
Summary: This is not a love story with ninjas. This is ninjas, who just happen to have a love story. [oneshot, ShikamaruTemari]


**AN:** This was another one of those came-outta-nowhere fics that I'm starting to expect from this pairing. Written in literally half an hour, and I'm still a little dubious about it, but the beta did a lovely keyboard-smash when I sent it to her, and the people over on the Shikamaru/Temari LJ comm seemed to like it, so...here it is. Sorry, it's depressing again. 

**EDIT**ed 17th July, to fix some typos. A big thank-you to everyone who's reviewed!

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They had both known it would never work out.

He has his loyalties to his village, his family and his friends. She has her brothers, and all that entails. It's as simple as that. He will never abandon his post, and she will never leave her brothers.

So, in the end, it was doomed.

They're both smart. He's smart enough to know when to be stupid. So that's sort of how it goes, when he kisses her at the border between Fire and Wind.

It might be doomed in the end, but he's kind of enjoying the beginning.

And the middle. The middle is really quite nice, he thinks. He's smart enough to know when to be stupid, and she's smart enough to know not to let a good thing pass her by.

So it's all right, for a while. They meet when they can, catching kisses in twilight and more in the uncertain hours between night and morning when she appears at his window.

They know better than to think past the moment. Only pain lies there.

His friends know what's going on. Her brother cracks jokes and she cracks him over the head with an impartial fan. And it's all right, as they both grow up and rise in rank.

Her brother becomes Kazekage. He finally makes jounin.

Life goes on. They pretend things won't change. He stops thinking about the future, child's dreams fading. She stops thinking about the past, child's nightmares dwindling.

And it works, for a while.

Things start to change. She's no longer sent to Fire Country so often with the pretext of messenger-duties. He's warned to make it a clean break, before things get worse.

But she's stubborn, and he's still smart enough to know when to be stupid. For them, nothing has changed.

Around them, everything's changing.

Slowly, inexorably, things fall apart. The relations between their two villages, their two families, their two ways of life, begin to worsen. He observes the chuunin exams and watches as the children get rowdier and more hostile every month. She listens in on political debates and watches them slowly barter their hard-won peace away.

One night, he asks her if it's been worth it. She smacks him and tackles him backwards, onto the bed.

One night is all they have, and they both know it.

She gets up the next morning, puts on her uniform, and goes home. He gets up, puts on his own uniform, and goes to work.

Things crumble, and dreams become nightmares again. Next time they see each other, it's across a battlefield.

He doesn't want to kill her, and she doesn't want to kill him. But it's their job, so they both do their damndest. The shinobi under his command watch him suspiciously as he gives ground to her, only to be reassured as he springs his first series of traps. Her subordinates die, one by one. So do his.

They're both fighting muted fury that it's come to this.

With a yell, she leaps to the front, wild and wide-open. He attacks, pressing the apparent advantage, ordering his men to the fore. A swipe of the oversized fan sends kunai and shuriken flying in a chakra-laden wind.

And then it's just him and her, facing each other across the battlefield.

She smiles a little, swiping at the blood on her face with an absent hand. He stands where he is, slouched, hands in his pockets. So familiar and so alien, they both think.

I'm sorry, he tells her.

She laughs in his face.

And they do battle. Not because they hate each other, or because they want to prove something. Not because they love each other, either (although they might, or they might not—it's not something they've ever discussed).

They fight because it's their job, what they have to do to be what they are.

In a lot of ways, it's stupid, a pointless, horrific waste of life.

It's what they have to do, to be who they are. He is a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf. She is a jounin of the Hidden Sand. They both know their duty. It doesn't matter if this battle will decide the fate of their respective villages, doesn't matter that in every way that matters to a person, they've both already lost.

Because, in the end, they're both more and less than people. They're ninjas.

They'd both known it was doomed from the beginning. Here, at the end, he smiles a little and decides he really doesn't regret it. And she has always lived without regrets. She will die without them, too. It's part of what drew them together in the first place.

They'd both known how it was going to end, and they'd both chosen it anyway.

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**Endnotes:** Yeah, it was kinda nice to get inspiration for something other than the godzilla-fic for a change. That thing is eating my life. If anyone's interested in previews/chapters, check out fangses dot livejournal dot com. 


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